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AN AVIAN SYMPHONY jolted me awake on my first morning in Australia’s Byron Bay. The initial squalls emanated from several aptly named noisy miners. The startling screeches of rainbow lorikeets and black cockatoos followed, like an alarm with the snooze button maddeningly out of reach. The final allegro came from a flock of cackling kookaburras outside my villa. I was slipping on a bathing suit by then, so they may well have been sniggering at my ghostly form.
Located a little more than an hour’s flying time from Sydney,…